Cough It Out
by biohazardgirl
Summary: In which Matt's poor treatment of his broken ribs finally catches up to him and he develops a severe case of pneumonia.
1. Chapter 1

**Thursday**

Hell's kitchen is a bitch to fight in in January. Snow fills Matt's ears with white cotton, and the numbing of his skin throws off his sense of direction. Despite his costume being fairly watertight, slush still manages to make a home pooled around his feet. It's a miracle he hasn't lost a toe to frostbite yet. If it weren't necessary to chase down the scumbag in front of him, Matt would be curled up under his blanket right now and dead to the world. As it stands, he needs vital information and this man might be his golden ticket.

All over the Kitchen, young men and women have been dying at clubs. A new drug called 'Starburst' has been the culprit – it's said to be better than E, but easier to overdose on because it's so concentrated. It's also implicated in about a dozen sexual assault charges. Passing the drug to someone is said to be an instant way to get them to sleep with you with none of the 'downsides' of roofies or alcohol or human decency. The man he's chasing is near top of the distribution chain, one of the middlemen keeping the cash flowing between the dealers, importers, and kingpins. Perfect intel.

The man Matt's chasing doesn't seem to know the Kitchen very well, because he is easily cornered into a dead end. The crunch of his footsteps halts as he realizes there's nowhere for him to go. Matt runs forward, and lands a blow to the man's face that breaks his nose. He uppercuts his stomach, and then assumes an intimidating position as the man registers the gravity of the situation.

"You're a middleman for the Starbust ring. I need answers, and unless you like having broken fingers I suggest you give them to me right now."

The man doesn't answer. His information must be very valuable, because he takes a second option. He throws his body at Matt like a weapon, and somehow he gets a good angle. Matt is thrown chest first onto a thick sheet of ice. An unmistakable crack resonates from inside his chest, and he cries out in pain as the criminal flees.

Get up, Matt urges himself, blinking back tears. He's getting away.

It's too late. The goon is gone, leaving Matt with no information and a broken rib. He pulls himself to his feet, breathing shallowly, and feels around in his pocket for the burner phone to call Claire.

By the time he gets to Claire's place, his chest has already begun to bruise and badly. He stopped once the entire way to lean against a building and assess the damage, and regretted touching it immediately. Matt's fractured a lot of ribs in the past, but he's never quite acclimated to resisting the internal pain.

There's a nice fire escape in Claire's new apartment, and she has a balcony now. He's grateful that this won't require scaling the building like Spider-Man, but the idea of climbing the stairs is still pretty daunting. The thin winter air is sapping him of much-needed oxygen, especially now that his choices are between shallow breathing and hellish pain. He grits his teeth, and wraps his hand around the fire escape's handrail. Today is not the day that he loses a fight to both a random goon and to a staircase.

He makes his way up the stairs carefully to avoid slippage. The stairs squeak and creak under his boots, threatening to make him lose traction. This noise, unfortunately, does not reduce the scraping sound inside of his chest. If a hairline fracture sounds like an old ship, an honest to god fracture is an unskilled saw rhythmically grinding through the wood refuse of a shipwreck. But it's something else too – his teeth ache at the eerie, unnatural vibrations of bone against bone rattling around in his chest.

Matt reaches the balcony and leaps over the barrier, clumsily but surely sticking his landing. He musters up the most stoic-yet-grateful face he can manage, and knocks on Claire's window. The hum of the electric lights in Claire's apartment flicker more strongly, and her bare feet pad across the floor. A third heavy object scrapes along the floor behind her as she crosses over to the window with an elevated heart rate. It's clear when she sees him because the object drops to the floor and she rushes over to the window to open it. The smell of her perfume and her cooking waft out the window, and Matt smiles.

"A baseball bat?" he says in the direction of the cylindrical object rolling lazily around her apartment.

"I don't get a lot of visitors that come to my window at 3am with good intentions." She holds her hand out to him, and he takes it.

"Am I the exception?" He ducks underneath the window frame, and steps into her apartment.

"Depends on the damages I see tonight. That's a nasty scrape on your chin – did you eat the street? Jesus."

"I'll live through that one," says Matt, removing his cowl. He winces in pain; the fracture scrapes inside him when he moves his arms. "But I uh. I think I have a broken rib and I can't tell how bad the fracture is." He puts the cowl down on her coffee table, and reaches behind him to undo his zipper. Another sharp pain radiates through his chest, and he bites back a cry.

"Sit down, Matt. I'll get that." He sits down on the couch, and Claire sits behind him. She unzips his costume halfway, pulls the top over his shoulders, and palpates his back and side. "I thought this costume was supposed to protect you from this sort of thing."

"It's a work in progress – ah!"

"Sorry," she says, squeezing his shoulder. "The damaged rib is underneath all this bruising. Lie down."

She flips the top of his suit down when he does. Then she leans over and rifles through a drawer in her coffee table before extracting a stethoscope and putting it in her lap. She palpates the front bruise, eliciting another hiss of pain.

"I landed at a bad angle on really thick ice."

"You sure did," she says, putting her stethoscope in her ears. Claire places the cold metal on his chest. "That's definitely a simple fracture. Breathe."

Her heart remains steady as she checks Matt's chest, so it's no surprise when she takes her stethoscope out of her ears and says, "No damage to the heart or lungs. As clean a bill of health you can get with a broken rib."

"Thank you, Claire," he says as he sits back up and shrugs his top on.

"Taking care of yourself while you heal will be a better thanks. Do some deep breathing exercises every couple of hours so you don't get pneumonia in this weather, and lay off of crime fighting for a few weeks, ok?"

She zips him back up, and hands him his cowl. He quirks a smile at her, and puts it back on.

"Ok."


	2. Chapter 2

**Friday**

"Alarm. Alarm. Alarm."

The familiar call pulls him out of a dead sleep. He waves his hand around to smack it, too tired to focus on where it is.

"Seven-thirty AM," it says when his fist lands. He moans softly. Too early.

Instinctively, he rolls onto his side away from the alarm clock and buries his face in his pillow. In response, a wave of pain rolls through his entire chest, causing his whole body to spasm. He rolls onto his back to escape the pain, and cups his hand over the swollen part of his chest. Broken rib. Right.

He takes a deep breath like Claire told him to, and is rewarded with a stabbing pain that radiates through his whole right side. His only alleviation is the shallow gulps of air that follow behind, keeping his lungs moving exactly where they very clearly want to be.

So much for deep breathing exercises. He'll take his chances with pneumonia.

"If you keep coming in to work looking like you got mugged, our clients are gonna start thinking that incredibly sketchy alley next to our office is dangerous."

Foggy's hanging on his doorframe, aiming for casual. He has obvious tells when he's worried, though – his heartbeat speeds up and his muscles radiate heat as he tenses.

"Good morning to you too, Foggy," says Matt. He pauses his refreshable braille display.

"What happened last night?" Foggy doesn't bother closing the door to Matt's office or lowering his voice. Karen has known about Daredevil for a while, and she probably wants to know too. Since Foggy has more experience dealing with Matt, she lets him do most of the legwork.

"I was investigating the Starburst ring," he says, loud enough for her to hear. "Someone threw me onto the ice. Claire took a look at me – says I broke a rib."

"Jesus. Did you get him at least?"

"No. He ran off before I could get up."

"That's too bad, buddy."

"Foggy, did you tell Matt to go home?" calls Karen from the lobby.

"I'm getting there, Karen!"

Matt manages to huff out a laugh. "You're conspiring against me."

"Ah yes, the most hideously evil conspiracy of all – Foggy Nelson and Karen Page being concerned over your health." Foggy sits down at the other side of his desk, and cups Matt's wrist with his hand. "Seriously, man, it's Friday and you're hurt. Take the afternoon off and go home."

"I'm fine, really. The break is clean – didn't puncture any organs or-"

"Wasn't a request, Murdock," says Foggy. He pats Matt's hand, and leaves before Matt can try to negotiate again.

Night comes, as it always does, with the ambient sounds of the city replaced by ambulance sirens and the dirty secrets people only share with the dark. Matt's on edge; he's been trying to meditate for hours in the hopes that it will help him heal faster. Every time his mind comes close to clear, he breathes too deep and the pain yanks him out of his reverie and towards distraction.

Somewhere in the Kitchen, a teenage girl is trying Starburst for the first time. Somewhere in the Kitchen, someone is selling it to her. Somewhere in the Kitchen, someone is profiting off of her assault, her death.

Matt stands up with his fists clenching, and he paces. This city needs him now. It doesn't have time for him to sit around crying in his apartment while he heals from something as trivial as a broken rib. Foggy, Claire, and Karen have good intentions but they aren't the ones out on the streets every night. They have no idea how sick this city truly is.

Somewhere in the Kitchen, a girl screams.

He runs towards his closet, and throws it open to reveal his costume hanging inside. Healing will have to wait.

Sitting still is something Matt has never truly mastered, but pushing through pain definitely is. He leaps over rooftops gracefully, not bothering to be careful. His body hasn't been built to last ever since radiation damaged it; it's ludicrous that he even considered started treating it as if it was. In his head, he recites the Lord's Prayer to drown out the sounds of his broken bones and the freezing cold wind on his face. Catholicism: the original pain reliever.

So far, he hasn't hit anyone tonight. Daredevil has grown quite a reputation, and muggers often run as soon as they see him. Most of the time they're just young guys trying to be tough; they don't want a broken arm for stealing someone's purse. Matt tries to not be disappointed; a fight would have really warmed him up.

The dry wind blows icily in Matt's direction, and for a moment it takes his breath away. As he coughs, voices blow in from the harbor. Matt stops in his tracks, swallows his coughing, and strains to hear their conversation.

". . .150 for a gram. . .give you a deal, 250 for two grams. . .pure as shit, not cut. . .promise. . ."

It's an unmistakable drug deal, and it's only a few blocks away. He makes it there in less than five minutes. He finally ends up on top of a train car near the harbor, and stands with his head held high to see if he can scare the amateur away. Predictably, the grunt leaves. Good – he isn't worth his time.

He takes a flying leap off of the train car and lands squarely on the shoulders of a very large man that reeks of cologne. The man screams with anger and fear; Matt punches him in the face, and grabs the collar of his shirt.

"You have information on the Starburst ring. If you like chewing your food I suggest you start talking – ah!"

Pain strikes him unsuspectingly, and renders him speechless. His grip loosens on the man's shirt collar. This sign of weakness is all the man needs to flip Matt over and pin him to the ground. His bleeding nose drips on Matt's face as he says, "The Devil of Hell's Kitchen – hah! Don't look very scary to me. Looks like Mark roughed you up pretty good."

Matt strains against the man's grip, but his strength is fading fast. The man hoists him into the air under his armpits; he tries to kick, but nothing is landing.

"Why don't you ask the fishes for intel, Daredevil? I'm sure they'll have plenty to say."

He drops Matt into the still ocean , and runs away.

Fuck the Starburst ring.

By the time he fishes himself out of the ocean and walks himself back home, Matt is a shivering wreck. There are tiny icicles frozen to his face, and his entire body is soaked through. His body tries to expel water by coughing, which is not helping his broken rib at all. Any healing that was done before his crime fighting is ruined. Thanks to his recklessness tonight, he might not be able to go out tomorrow. Great.

His heated apartment is a godsend after a thankless, worthless night. He peels off his costume, and puts it on the floor to dry. Without putting on any clothes, he gets under his covers, and closes his eyes.

In his dreams, he is still underwater. He wakes up right before he drowns.


	3. Chapter 3

**Saturday Morning**

Despite his utter exhaustion, Matt gets precious little sleep before startling awake. He's sweating profusely, blankets kicked around his ankles and still completely nude. His apartment is always exactly seventy degrees; the only way it could be this hot is if the thermostat is broken. Maybe he'll be able to go back to sleep if he fixes it.

Gingerly, he hoists himself into sitting position. For a moment, he becomes lightheaded; the air in his apartment is must be thin. He coughs, loud and full of mucus, and pain shoots through his entire chest.

Something is wrong.

His chest hurts differently than before –besides the broken bone, there's heaviness and pain in his lungs every time he takes a breath. He can't get enough air, no matter how deeply he breathes. On top of that, each breath is accompanied by an unpleasant crackling sound from deep inside him.

Matt coughs again, harder and longer than before. A splat of thick phlegm lands in his hand. His mouth becomes slick with the foul substance, and he has no choice but to spit more of it into his hand. He gets to his feet and shuffles to the bathroom to get rid of the mess and find a thermometer. There's no way a fever isn't involved – he's shivering too much for it to be as hot as his body is telling him it is.

He tips his hand into the bathroom sink to get rid of most of the phlegm, and washes his hands to get rid of the rest. Then he rummages around in the medicine cabinet for his thermometer. After rinsing it off and turning it on, he sticks it under his tongue and waits for it to talk.

"One hundred and one degrees," it chirps. He takes it out of his mouth, puts it on the bathroom counter, and sighs. This inspires a whole new round of wet coughing that makes him glad he was already at the sink.

It's just a cold.

He paces slowly around the house all afternoon. Saturday is usually gym day; he'll pummel the bag until he's mellow and sore. All the while he forms his attack plans for the night. They're rough hewn and volatile on Friday but polished til they're clean on Saturday. Losing his lead on Thursday was a major setback; losing it on Friday was practically a crime. His fever and worsening pain doesn't slow the buzzing in his brain, so he tries to set basic information to the rhythm of his steps.

Two middlemen. Probably more, though not many. Knowledgeable of his weak spots. Unfamiliar with the Kitchen. Heavy set. Crude fighting skills. Starburst $100 for a gram. Names –

He has no names. No ethnic markers. Nothing. Nothing-

Suddenly he feels faint. It's difficult to get enough air, and it's catching up with him. He breathes more quickly in an attempt to get more oxygen into his lungs. This inspires a round of coughing that nearly knocks him over and leaves him spitting mucus onto the floor. It tastes a little bit like blood. He sits down on the floor, careful to avoid sitting in the foul substance.

Matt's never coughed up anything that tasted like blood before. The only time he has ever heard of it happening is when Foggy describes people doing it in movies.

'What a cliché way to tell the audience that they're dying. Honestly, coughing up blood can't be that common. When was the last time you ever heard of anyone in real life dying that way?'

'I dunno, Foggy. Stranger things have happened.'

'Touché.'

He should call someone – Foggy, Claire, Karen. They would probably be able to help him. However, this help might end up with him in the hospital for who knows how long. Young people would continue to die from chemical exploitation and their blood would be on his hands. The city needs him, and it needs him tonight. He could die in a hospital bed full of guilt, or he could die sacrificing his life for the good of others.

Not that he's going to die. Just. . .if he did. Which he won't, because life isn't the movies and Matt has lived through much worse than. . .one broken rib and a really bad cold.

God, his chest hurts. Every breath is agonizing, like someone is sitting on him and stabbing him all at once. He's so tired –

No. This is not where he sleeps, no matter how tired he is. Matt has to heal before he goes out tonight, and sleeping on the floor is fast track to a hospital. He croaks out a prayer, extending his hand to someone who might intercede.

'Saint Jude worker of Miracles, pray for me, Saint Jude helper and keeper of the hopeless, pray for me, Thank you Saint Jude.'

He stands on shaky legs and heads to his bedroom. A regenerative nap should be what it takes to get him into good enough shape to go out again tonight.


	4. Chapter 4

**Saturday Afternoon**

"Foggy. Foggy. Foggy."

Matt startles awake at the sound of his phone. His chest aches immediately on such a sharp intake of breath. As he reaches for his phone, he descends into another round of coughing. He puts the phone down, and waits for it to subside. Foggy will worry if he doesn't sound well, and that would not be good news for Daredevil's nightly patrol.

He picks up the phone again and says, "Call Foggy."

"Calling Foggy," his phone chirps back. Matt swallows repeatedly as it rings, willing his throat to behave for a short while.

"Hey, buddy! Glad you called back. Thought maybe you were out doing something stupid."

Matt huffs out a laugh. "I'm in my apartment. Your call just woke me up."

Foggy pauses for a moment. "Holy shit, Matt. You sound terrible."

"No I don't," Matt denies. Then he coughs for at least fifteen seconds and groans at a fresh wave of pain. Fuck. "It's just a cold. I'm fine."

"You have a broken rib and a cough that sounds like you're dying on top of it. That is really far from fine, man. Do you have a fever? Are you drinking water? Are you eating -"

"Foggy. . .I can take care of myself," he says irritably. Then he coughs again into his hand and. . .gross, mucus is coming up. Too much mucus - fuck, he can't breathe, he can't breathe-

"Matt? Matt?" Foggy sounds really worried now. "Are you there? That sounds really really bad."

Matt wants to answer but the coughing won't stop. His rib scrapes inside of him over and over, threatening to puncture his lungs as his body spasms pathetically. The world closes in around him as he becomes lightheaded.

"Matt? Can you hear me? Matt?"

Everything is so hot and so painful. He just wants it to end.

"Matt?" Foggy's voice echoes distantly. The phone, inches from his face, feels so far away.

His eyes roll into the back of his head as he passes out.


	5. Chapter 5

**Saturday Night**

"Matt? Matt? Oh my god."

Someone is batting at his cheek over and over. Matt inhales a sharp, rattling breath as he enters consciousness. He swings out aimlessly to get whoever is touching him to stop.

"Whosthere?" he chokes out. "Get out."

The person - man- steps back away from the bed.

"Matt? It's Foggy. I came to check on you."

Matt groans. He tries to say 'I'm fine' but then his body is racked with a bout of excruciatingly painful coughing. His chest is on fire, and he tries to not let tears well up at the corner of his eyes in response.

He doesn't dare to touch the bruising over his broken rib.

"You're here," he responds inanely.

"I'm here," affirms Foggy, gently. He gets closer to Matt again, and puts his hand on his forehead. Matt is too tired to resist. "You're burning up. How long have you been like this?"

Matt makes a noncommittal noise. He's not sure, and admitting that makes him sound worse.

"Have you taken your own temperature?"

That he did know. "Yes."

"Do you remember what it was?"

Over a hundred, his brain informs him unhelpfully. "Normal," Matt lies.

Foggy scoffs. "I don't even know why I'm asking you. Where is your thermometer?"

Another noncommittal noise.

"Fine. I'll find it myself." He sweeps out of the room. Matt doesn't protest. Instead, he tries to sit up. After several rounds of miserable, dizzying coughing, he manages to get himself upright. Then he realizes he's still naked. He gets unsteadily to his feet, shuffles over to his dresser, finds a long sleeve tee and some pajama bottoms, puts them on, and flops back down on the bed. By the time he's gotten through the whole rigamarole, he's so tired and sore that he feels like he's taken down a whole street gang by himself.

Gang. . .oh, fuck. He has to go out tonight. Foggy doesn't even like when he goes out on good days. There's no way he'll be leaving without a struggle tonight.

Foggy re-enters the room with his thermometer and a glass of water. He sets the glass of water down on the bedside table with a soft 'clink', hands Matt the thermometer and says, "Put it in your mouth."

He doesn't resist. Noncompliance is a bad tactic if he wants to escape later.

"One hundred and two degrees," the device chirps. Matt takes it out of his mouth.

"It's not that bad," he says before coughing, thick and phlegmy. Mucus falls into his hand, and he groans. The evidence against him, unfortunately, is becoming very incriminating.

"For some reason, I don't buy that at all. Does Claire know about this?"

"Yeah," says Matt. "She said it's fine. Just a cold."

"So if I called her right now she would say that you've seen her? She wouldn't say, 'Matt needs to go to the hospital right now?' Because that's what I'm personally taking away from this situation. That you need to go to the hospital."

Ok, so the tactic of compliance isn't working.

"I haven't seen Claire," he admits. "If it will make you feel better. . .tell her to come over here and check me out. Burner phone's in the kitchen."

Foggy leaves the room, muttering about hospitals and being difficult, and Matt takes his chance. He stumbles over to his dresser, and takes out a long sleeve pajama shirt. He ties it over the top half of his face by making a knot out of the sleeves.

Matt wishes he could stop. His lungs are so full of liquid that they feel like they are going to burst. Due to his coughing, his other ribs are threatening to crack. It's not unlikely that any minute his first broken rib could puncture an organ. However, this could happen either in a hospital bed or by being on the streets. The former sounds humiliating, and is a future he'd like to avoid.

He can't avoid going into the common space to leave. The roof landing leads up from the living room and the door is, of course, a door. Matt stomps menacingly out of his bedroom, gritting his teeth like he did while fighting in that hallway so long ago. Foggy hangs up the phone suddenly and runs over to him.

"Where do you think you're going?"

Matt huffs out animalistic breaths, willing his coughing down all the while. He clenches his fists. "I'm leaving. Get out of the way. I don't want to hurt you."

Foggy stands in front of the stairs. "No way. You're not doing this to yourself. If you leave, I'm calling 911."

Matt ignores him. He braces himself, then lands a flip over Foggy and runs up the stairs as fast as his battered body can take him.

It's freezing cold on the roof. Wind whips violently at him, and his feverish body shivers violently. His ears suffer for it - it becomes immediately unclear which sounds are real and which ones are -

No. He's not entertaining the idea of fever hallucinations. No time. He'll trust his gut.

Another gust of wind takes his breath away and he doubles over as he coughs and coughs. Matt can hear Foggy rushing up the stairs beneath him. He pulls himself up and raises his head to the sky. Soft, wet snowflakes fall on his nose and mouth. His toes are freezing; he forgot to put on shoes.

"Matt!" cries Foggy. He's close behind. Without thinking any further, Matt jumps off his roof and onto the next. He keeps going - past the pain, past the cold, past his own self-centered desire to rest. There is no destination other than far, far away.

Several blocks from his home, a flagpole is the only thing that will help to bridge the distance between one building and the next. He jumps and catches the pole. However, without his gloves, the wet snow makes the metal pole slip right through his fingers. He falls ten feet to the ground and lands in a dumpster in the alleyway.

He has no energy left to process the smell or the pain or the terror of being caught. There is only the feeling of snow gently falling on his body followed by a blissful descent into unconsciousness.


	6. Chapter 6

**Sunday Morning**

Matt's awakening is fuzzy and ill-defined, a thin line between conscious and not. His body isn't allowing the luxury of anything else. He can hear his lungs giving in to the liquid pressure within them, and he's certain that he has broken at least two more ribs. Possibly his ankle, too, though it's hard to hear with all the pressure built up in his ears. Goddamn it.

Something disgusting is lying on top of Matt's face. He turns his head several inches to remove it, and realizes it's a rotting banana peel. Strange. Matt feels the surface underneath his hands to figure out what it is. Some sort of smooth plastic. . .? It smells really bad too. . .

Matt clenches his fists tight in frustration. He's in the garbage again. As if it wasn't bad enough the first time. He needs to get out of here. . .he needs. . .

An unholy breathless spasm wracks his body. He coughs and spits bloody mucus into the trash over and over, trying to get it all out. His ribs are moving strangely too somehow, which is weakening the strength of his coughs. It's also making it more difficult to breathe properly; everything inside him is out of sync.

Only one coherent thought stands out in his brain when his body mercifully stops rejecting its insides. Matt is actively dying, he knows this now, and he refuses to do it in the garbage.

He pushes himself up on his elbows, and then somehow to a sitting position. There's barely enough oxygen in his lungs for stasis, let alone movement, so he rests there for a moment and wills himself not to cough. He raises a leaden arm to tap at the sides of the dumpster. The trash is almost to the top; it would only take a little push to get him to the ground.

Matt gets caught up in coughing before he can get into position to launch himself out. It seems like every inch of him has at least a little sweat on it; he'd need a shower if he was going to be alive much longer. Instead, he just needs to get out of the damn garbage. He wipes the moisture from his hands onto his damp pajama pants and tests their grip against the edge of the dumpster. Good.

He pulls himself up onto unsteady feet, shaking like a leaf and suddenly so cold. Oh. It's not sweat on his skin. It's snow. There's a thin layer of snow covering his body, and he nearly cries with harsh, ironic laughter picturing himself as the little match girl dying in the trash. No, unlike her he's going to find some sort of building to die in. Hopefully there's a church nearby but first - out of the dumpster.

Matt swings one leg over the edge, and groans at the pain in his abdomen. His bones are rattling like stray lincoln logs, threatening to disintegrate any moment. He wills them to behave; they won't be needed for very much longer and when he's dead they can do whatever they want. The other leg swings over, and he lands four feet down on his. . .yeah, if it wasn't crushed before it is now. . .ankle. He rests a hand against the dumpster and breathes and coughs and breathes and coughs and -

It's so tempting to just sit down and rest against the dumpster but again - he's not taking the easy way out now or ever. He pushes his body away from the dumpster, and sets off in a walk-and-drag sort of fashion that leaves him sweating not two feet from where he started. Just a few more steps. . .a few more. . .and he's out of the alley. There are lots of people around, and it jams up his senses even worse than they already are. He falls to his knees, right in the way of pedestrian traffic, and people bump into him and around him uncaringly. The world swims in and out of focus, crowded and then airless, loud and then silent, and he rasps out the word 'no' on repeat as if verbal commands could stop his body from failing.

He's unconscious again before his head hits the pavement.


End file.
